Richard finally came to the edge of the bed to peer over Graham's reclin­ing body. His hair was sleep tousled, a thick brown-gold mass around his ar­rogantly handsome face. The arrogance slipped, and the guilt I'd begun to dread almost as much replaced it.

"Anita ..." He made a painful sound of my name, so much pain in that one word. He crawled onto the bed, and showed that he was still wearing shorts. He'd either taken the time to dress, or slept clothed, very unlycan-thrope. The other men made room for him, but they didn't leave the bed. He started to crawl over me, but the first touch tore small pain noises from me. He went up on his hands and knees above me, keeping his weight off me, but my wolf was too close to the surface. Richard putting himself above us like that meant he thought he was superior to us and my wolf didn't think he'd earned that. Neither did I.

I felt the wolf crouch to spring. Felt it gather itself as if it could spring from my body to Richard's. I had a moment to realize that it could do just that. I'd felt Richard's beast and one of mine fight once. It had hurt. I was al­ready hurt. I did not want to do this.

"Move, Richard." My voice was an abused whisper.

"It's all right, Anita, I'm here."

I put my good arm against his chest and pushed. "Move, now."

"You're in a dominant position over her," Graham said, "I don't think she likes it."

Richard looked at him, while his body stayed over mine. "She's not a wolf, Graham, she doesn't think like that."

A low growl trickled out of my throat. I didn't mean for it to.

Richard turned his head slowly, the way you do in horror movies when you finally look behind you. He stared down at me, his hair like a thick frame around the soft astonishment of his eyes. "Anita...," he said, but my name was a question this time, as if he wasn't sure.

That soft, deep roll of growl vibrated across my lips again. I whispered in a voice deeper than any I'd ever had, "Move."

"Please, Ulfric," Clay said, "please move."

Richard went back on his knees, still straddling me, but in a postion that a wolf couldn't exactly duplicate. It should have been enough, but my wolf had found another way out, a hole that it could climb through. Always be­fore when I'd shared my beast with other lycanthropes I'd only felt fur and bone, as if some great beast were walking around inside me, but this time I saw it. I saw the wolf as I'd seen it in the dream. It wasn't truly white, but the

color of cream, with dark markings like a saddle across its back and head. That dark cape was every shade of gray and black intermingled, and even trie white and cream wasn't truly white or cream, but mixed like milk and but­termilk. I stroked my hand across that fur, and it was... real.

I jerked so hard it hurt, made me cry out, but I could still feel the mem­ory of fur under my good hand, as if I'd touched something solid.

"She smells real," Graham said.

Richard had gone very still where he knelt over me. "Yes," he said in a far­away voice, "she does."

"Bring her wolf," Clay said, voice soft. "Make her change, so she'll stop hurting herself."

"She'll lose the baby," Richard said, but he was staring down at me with a look on his face that I couldn't read, or maybe didn't want to.

"She's going to lose the baby anyway," Claudia said.

He looked down at me, and his eyes were lost. "I can see the wolf inside you, Anita, just behind my eyes, I can see it. We can smell it. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to bring your beast?" His voice sounded empty, as if he were already in mourning. He didn't want to do it; that much was clear. But for once, we agreed.

"No," I said, "don't."

He didn't slump, but a tension went out of him. "You heard her. I won't do it against her will."

"Say that after you've seen the convulsions. I've never seen anyone fight like this, not for this long," Claudia said. "Once someone's this far along, they shouldn't be able to fight the change. Even her eyes are still human."

Richard gazed down at me, face solemn. "That's our girl," but he didn't sound happy when he said it. He let down his shields, not all the way, but as if he blinked metaphysically. I got a glimpse at his emotions, his thoughts, just a glimpse. If I shifted for real, he wouldn't want me. He valued my hu­manity, because he felt like he had none. If I shifted, I would cease to be Anita to him. He still didn't understand that being a werewolf didn't stop you being a human being.

But underneath those thoughts were others, though thoughts might be the wrong word. His beast was in there, his wolf, and it wanted me to change. It wanted me to be wolf, because then I would belong to it. Can't be lupa and Nimir-Ra if you're actually wolf for real.

The thought made me look across the bed, until I found Micah. I saw it in his eyes, the loss, as if he were already certain of it. No way. I would not lose him, not now. I turned to look around the room for my other leopard. Turned too fast, hurt the muscles in my left shoulder, muscles I'd torn.

Nathaniel came to the side of the bed as if he understood that I was looking for him.

There were tears drying on his face, as if he'd cried, and hadn't bothered to wipe them away. You could date outside your species, I knew that, but I re­membered Richard saying once that dominants don't. If you were high enough up in the power hierarchy, you didn't date outside the pack. I was lupa; there was no higher-ranking female than me. I was Bolverk, which would have made me like an officer anyway. Either way you cut it, if the wolf I could touch came out for real, then I'd lose more than a surprise pregnancy.

I knew I had at least one more beast inside me. I held leopard, the way I held wolf. If I was finally going to go all the way furry, could I choose what kind of furry? Looking into Nathaniel's face, watching Micah look away so I wouldn't read his face, I knew I had to try.

I gazed up at Richard. I said it out loud: "You don't want me to change, that's why you won't help."

"You don't want to be one of us, not for real." His face was sliding back to that arrogant, angry mask.

"You're right."

His anger showed, almost a pleased anger, as if that one statement proved that I was no better than he was, no more comfortable in furry skin.

I looked at Micah and Nathaniel. Micah had moved so that he could hug Nathaniel. "Micah, Nathaniel, help me call leopard."

Micah looked startled. "It's not a choice, Anita. I can smell what you are."

I started to shake my head, but whatever I'd done to my left shoulder made it hurt too much. "I hold four different strains. Why can't I pick which way I go?"

Graham and Clay looked at Richard, as if wondering what he'd say. "I think you're out of choices," he said, "but if you want to try, I won't stop you." He was hurt, and his trying to hide it made it more painful to see. If I changed, he'd look elsewhere. I didn't think he'd find someone willing to share him with what amounted to a permanent mistress, furry or not, but hey, it wasn't my life. It was his life.

I could see the wolf in my head, like a waking dream, all subtle cream and white and black and gray. It looked at me with eyes that were an amber so dark they were almost brown. It was like looking into a piece of your soul and having it look back.

Richard slid off the bed. The wolf didn't panic; it stood there in me, pa­tient, waiting. Graham started to follow, sliding off. The wolf paced closer to the surface again, agitated. I grabbed his arm. "Stay." He froze under my touch, half kneeling beside the bed.

Clay looked from me to Richard. "Stay until she says go," Richard said, in a voice that managed to be closed, empty, and angry all at the same time.

"Micah, Nathaniel, help me raise our beast." They didn't argue or hesi­tate; they simply crawled up on the bed. They crawled toward me in that graceful way that the lycanthropes had, as if they had muscles that we mere mortals didn't have, as if they could have balanced a cup on their backs.